The new Bribery Act will be enforced on 1 July 2011, bringing in a new law that will prohibit the offering, requesting or receiving of a bribe, and this will apply internationally when viewed from a commercial angle. As the commencement date of the Act draws near, you should have preparations well under way for your anti-bribery & corruption policies and procedures and you should be designing systems and controls that assist in preventing you, your firm, or any of your employees from falling foul of the new offences under the Act. In its business plan for 2010/2011 the FSA indicates that it will continue to focus on the areas of bribery and corruption.

As a company you could be held liable if you have negligently failed to prevent a bribe being made on behalf of your company, whether by one individual or a colluding number of directors/managers/employees. As such this piece of legislation will have a far greater and wider impact on your organisation than the fairly narrow and prescriptive FCPA in the US. 

MHA offers reviews of anti-bribery and corruption systems, controls & strategies and we are happy to provide a recommended actions report, enabling you to benchmark your organisation against emerging best practice. This review
is the foundation of any anti-corruption environment. MHA will focus on the following areas:

• Does the company evaluate the risk of corruption when doing business?

• Does the company assess the risk of corruption when dealing with public officials?

• Does the company evaluate the risk of conflicts of interest in relation to business partners and government officials?

• An analysis of policies in relation to expenses, gifts, gratuities and procurement.

• The company’s action plan to address the risk of corruption, and defined responsibilities for each task.

In addition, MHA can help you to design and implement an ABC framework and provide firm-wide training and awareness on these topics.

For further information how MHA can help you, please contact us.